While digging through my parents’ basement last weekend looking for a baseball bat for my son, I found an old Fenwick 6’ 5wt that is perfect for fishing the small mountain streams near where I live. I took it home and started look the collection of reels, mostly the older ones that were handed down from my grandfather, to see if one would be a good fit. Since the fishing is mainly for native brookies, there was no need for any kind of drag so I picked a simple old Pflueger. I decided to transfer the line/leader/backing set-up that I had on another reel to a separate spool so I could then put it on this reel. After attaching the backing, I began winding the line on. About a quarter of the way through the backing, the screw that holds the spool in place fell out. Not thinking anything of it, I tightened it back down and tried to start winding again. The reel was nearly impossible to turn unless I backed the screw out a bit.
By now you can probably figure where I’m going with this. How can I get the screw to stay in, without having it so tight the reel won’t turn? Is there a grease or something I could coat the screw in that would keep it from freeing itself? I’d really like to use this reel, for multiple reasons, but don’t want to take the chance of losing the screw while on the water. If the problem can’t be fixed, I guess that little guy will just become a decoration on the shelf.
Loctite purple. Don’t use the red, or you will never get the screw to move again. You may have problems with the blue too. Purple Loctite should be what you need. Any decent hardware or auto parts store should carry it.
I don’t know that a washer would do it (the screw is pretty short), but I’d much rather go that route if possible. If I can’t find one that works, I’ll give the Loctite a try.
Thanks for the tips. It’s a good thing you specified the color of loctite. I probably would have bought the red stuff and gotten myself in trouble.
I’ve had similar trouble with a couple other “tools”, (not reels) in the past, where a screw kept coming loose. I fixed it and it worked well by putting a slight “flat” on the screw thread. I did this by tapping against a hardened anvil.
Should you decide to go this route (and I think I would if you don’t have to keep removing the spool) you can manage on such a short screw length using a small pair of vise grips. Tighten/fit to suit and engage the grips. Just try it a little at a time, replacing the screw and maybe tightening a bit more.
It’ll work fine if you don’t need to keep removing the spool. It creates an “interference fit” by flattening the crests of the threads.
Go easy to test, you don’t want to mash them so as not to “start” the screw w/o the dreaded “cross-threading” trouble.
The reel is a Progress. The good news is that the problem was actually with the spool, not the screw. I have two of these reels, one with the clicker, one without (the one without the clicker doesn’t have a screw to hold the spool on :-?). I loaded the line on the one with the clicker.
So, I took the empty spool and put it on the reel with the clicker and tightened down the screw. After about what seemed like a thousand turns the screw was still just as tight. Upon further side-by-side inspection it appears that the spool I loaded has a bit of a raised area that contacts the screw causing it to come loose. Now my project is to move the backing/line/leader over to the other spool and go fishing.
